Containers of various sizes, shapes and materials are conventionally utilized in the foodstuffs industry to hold a variety of food products. Typically, the foodstuff packager will purchase and maintain in inventory bulk quantities of packaging materials. The packager will then usually fabricate the containers prior to filling them with particular foodstuffs. While some packaging materials (e.g., boxboard or other sheet-like material) may be transported in bulk to and stored by the foodstuff packager in an essentially flat (and hence space-saving) form, more rigid containers (i.e., containers which require greater structural strength than that afforded by containers formed of such sheet-like materials) may be required to be transported in an empty state to the food packager thereby wasting valuable shipping and warehouse space.
The containers according to the present invention are provided so as to solve many of the problems associated with conventional foodstuff packagings (although the containers of this invention may certainly be used commercially in non-foodstuffs industries). For example, the containers of this invention are provided with the means by which increased lateral strength and stability are imparted to the container body, while also allowing the container body, when empty, to be collapsed longitudinally to a more space-saving state. However, the present invention also includes containers having both lateral and longitudinal strength (and thus are essentially non-collapsible longitudinally) if these functions are more important for particular packaging applications than the space-saving collapsibility functions of other embodiments of this invention.
These advantageous aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing a "thin-film" container body (which is therefore collapsible longitudinally) having one or more integral (and more preferably unitary) annular bands of relatively thicker material (i.e., as compared to the thickness of the thin-film material of the container body) which impart lateral strength and stability to the otherwise low strength and instable thin film container body. When empty, the thin film container body of the present invention is therefore capable of collapsing to a more space-saving state, yet when filled with desired contents, the container body is laterally strengthened and stabilized by means of the annular bands.
If non-collapsing functions are desired, longitudinal and circumferentially spaced-apart rib elements may integrally be provided on the thin film container body. According to this embodiment of the present invention, reduced material costs are realized (i.e., since an otherwise thin film body may be provided) while yet achieving non-collapsibility functions (i.e., due to the longitudinal rib elements integrally provided on the thin film container body).
These aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent after careful consideration is given to the following detailed description of the preferred exemplary embodiment thereof.